Pencil sketch of Oliver the Shih-Tzu.
Illustrators, Graphic Designers, Cartoonist all have there own ways of “how to” start there design concept. For me… A simple old school style drawing, the art of using pencil and paper. One thing I rarely use is an eraser! Odd right since you would like that the pink eraser is usually on top of those yellow pencils you use to have in your pencil case back in elementary school… NOPE….I just draw little circles here and there, add lines then add in detail later. I would then use a nice felt pen preferably Indian ink and draw the links and outlines. Get them all ready to go for import into illustrator.